


La Douleur Exquise (A Love Song For You and Me)

by wwhy



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Cheating, Child Abuse, Consensual Underage Sex, Domestic Violence, Emotional Manipulation, First Time, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Kissing, Light Angst, M/M, Psychopathology & Sociopathy, Rape/Non-con Elements, Underage Drinking, Unsafe Sex, You Have Been Warned, too much baekhyun legs appreciation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-30
Updated: 2018-03-30
Packaged: 2019-04-04 08:36:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,467
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14016411
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wwhy/pseuds/wwhy
Summary: Baekhyun and Chanyeol aren’t your typical couple. The names on the insides of their wrists don’t match, and Baekhyun’s already met his soulmate.But Chanyeol makes it work.He always does.





	La Douleur Exquise (A Love Song For You and Me)

**Author's Note:**

> Beta wanted. First CB work. Tags may contain trigger warnings.

He's always thought that Chanyeol was a little weird, really.

It's the way he always knows what Baekhyun’s thinking, knows just what to say to make his day. Anything Chanyeol says to him is like music to his ears.

It's the way he sometimes stares for a little too long. Occasionally, he’ll be seen sporting the blankest expression, bored out of his mind. But then he’ll see Baekhyun and he’ll light up like a Christmas tree.

It’s the way Chanyeol makes him feel like he’s his soulmate, although the tattoos on the insides of their wrists aren’t each other’s names.

Chanyeol might be _weird,_ but Baekhyun thinks that he’s even _weirder._

Baekhyun is in the fourth grade when he meets Chanyeol.

He's running laps around the school for track and field. Or rather, he's running because his teacher told him one lap around the school is approximately four hundred metres, and it would be good practice for his four hundred metre relay race.

Baekhyun is a bright boy. He's tall for his age– a little taller than most of the girls in his grade but not the tallest boy he knows. He has long legs that make him a fast runner and his stamina is remarkable. He's the favourite of the gym teacher and popular in his class. 

Currently, he's on his second lap around the school after a short water break. He wants to make his time shorter by at least ten seconds before the track meet next week, so he's practicing as much as he can. Beat his record, carry his team, take home the gold medal. His mother will be proud and tell him that he’s a good boy, that she’s _so_ happy for him.

He looks down and he sees the concrete zoom by under him. When he's running, he feels like he's flying, as if he’s soaring through the skies like an unstoppable comet. He runs at the fastest speed his small body can take.

Truthfully, he feels Chanyeol before he sees him. Baekhyun is too busy eyeing his worn-out sneakers, and he's reminding himself to ask his mother to buy him new shoes and shoelaces. He doesn't take notice of Chanyeol's pudgy body in front of him before it's too late, and he crashes into him. 

Currently, Baekhyun’s rolling on the floor and wincing at the pain of a rock cutting into his knee. He’s not running anymore. The concrete isn't flying past him below his feet anymore.

His time is going to be greatly affected by this.

He looks up in annoyance at the lump of fat that was laying in his path. Chanyeol is the fattest boy in their grade, and all the other kids call him fatcake because his grandmother runs a bakery and he always has cake for lunch. 

(Baekhyun doesn't call him by this nickname because his mother told him bullying others is not nice.)

But, looking at the blood running down his knee and no apology heard from the chubby boy yet, he's more tempted than ever to derogate the boy with a number of creative nicknames.

"Hey. Hey, you. Get up." Baekhyun turns his nose up at the round boy sitting with his back facing him. He hears sniffs coming from him, followed by a few hiccups. The sniffling boy shows no signs of getting up or any acknowledgment that he had even heard Baekhyun.

"Are you hurt or something? Come on. Get up from there," Baekhyun says in a less aggravated tone, followed by a gentler _don't cry._

Chanyeol finally turns around and Baekhyun sees his face streaked with tears while he cradles an elbow to his portly body. The boy's glasses are stained with moisture and the pout on his face makes him look miserable. Baekhyun frowns when he sees only a small scrape on the boy's elbow. It's nothing more than a streak of red, and is minuscule compared to the blood running down his leg.

"Let me see that. It's nothing big. I'll take you to the teacher and we'll get some bandages, okay? So stop crying."

Chanyeol gives a loud sniff and nods. He seems surprised when Baekhyun holds out a hand to help him up because he's still sitting butt-down on the concrete.

"Doesn't that hurt?" Chanyeol asks Baekhyun after he helps him up. He notices Baekhyun's grip is firm compared to his own. Baekhyun stands with his head held high and his shoulders squared. 

"What? My knee?" Baekhyun looks down at the dried blood on his leg and shrugs.

"You get hurt all the time in track. It's no big deal."

"It looks worse than my elbow. But you didn't cry."

"I didn't cry because I'm a boy. My mom tells me boys shouldn't cry."

"Why can't boys cry?"

Baekhyun pauses to think. "I'm not really sure. She just tells me.”

Chanyeol has nothing to say in response and drops his elbow from where he was cradling it.

"No one has ever helped me up before."

Baekhyun turns his head. "What was that?"

"Everybody who pushes me down just laughs at me. Then they run."

Baekhyun feels a little awkward after Chanyeol tells him this, so he stays silent. He walks a little faster, tries to focus a little less on the pulsing in his knee. He chews on a finger in thought until he turns an eye to Chanyeol.

Chanyeol's eyes are unreservedly shining, and his gaze is so intense Baekhyun swerves his head and goes back to looking ahead of him.

"What's your name?" The voice that comes from beside him is hopeful and wobbly.

"My name is Baekhyun," Baekhyun says carefully. He’s a little nervous now, and he’s not really sure why.

"I think you're my soulmate.” 

Baekhyun almost trips at these words.

“Look here. Your name is on my wrist."

The runner stops in his steps and furrows his brows. He looks to his left and surely enough, Chanyeol is pointing to the black ink engraved on his thick wrist. Chanyeol looks absolutely radiant, and he’s smiling at Baekhyun so wide one of his eyes looks a little larger than the other. Baekhyun’s eyes widen when he realizes that the writing on Chanyeol’s arm clearly says  _Baekhyun._ It's unmistakably his name with every stroke in _hangul_ placed correctly.

He looks at the stout boy and wrinkles his nose in childish disgust.

"I think you have the wrong person."

"But your name is right here. Baekhyun. That's– "

"Your name isn't on my wrist. Mine’s in Chinese, I think, and you're definitely not Chinese. You're talking to me in Korean."

Chanyeol opens his mouth to object again, one of his eyes twitching behind his dirty glasses, but Baekhyun doesn't give him the chance to before he picks up his legs and sprints off. His knee is throbbing with each and every step he takes, but he knows if he runs fast enough, Chanyeol won't be able to catch him even with his injured knee. 

For a minute, he feels guilty when he thinks back to the tears running down Chanyeol's face and his scraped elbow. Park 'Fatcake' Chanyeol– the boy no one really likes but no one really hates, but also the boy no one really wants to be friends with. 

But, he also thinks that Chanyeol doesn't need him to look for a bandage. He can go to the teacher and ask for one himself if his elbow hurts that bad.

The thought takes a weight off his shoulders and he sprints faster.

 

 

 

Baekhyun is in the sixth grade when he starts wondering why the names on his parents' wrists don't match each other’s.

His mother tells him many things, and whenever she does, Baekhyun trusts her. She whispers to him every night that he was born to be a runner with his small frame and his thin build. She looks at his legs and tells him that they’re beautiful, that they’re going to be perfect for long-distance running when he’s older. She holds his hands and compares them to her own, and tells him that he got his pretty hands from her side of the family.

Baekhyun knows that his mother always wanted to be a runner. She always wanted to compete in the Olympics, training since she was young in marathons and competitions. But when her chance came and the 1988 Olympics were held in Seoul, she had her hands busy with his brother. She spent five years retraining to compete, and when the time for the 1992 Olympics rolled around, she became pregnant with Baekhyun.

Sometimes his mother looks at Baekhyun with pain in her eyes. She might place her hands on his legs or around his ankle and squeeze a little too tight with her delicate hands. She only stops when Baekhyun whimpers, and she apologizes and holds him close, whispering that he’s her _baby_ and she would never do anything to hurt him. She makes him promise that he’ll compete in the Olympics for her and bring back a gold medal.

(His brother watches all of this from the doorway with loneliness in his eyes.)

One night during dinner, when his father comes home on the only day of the week that he’s free, Baekhyun asks his mother why the name on her wrist doesn’t belong to his father. His parents look at each other awkwardly, and struggle to find the right words until his mother is stroking his hair with a gentle but careful look in her droopy eyes.

“You see, Baekhyun, it’s a very, very rare thing to find your soulmate. The names on our wrists don’t dictate who we’re going to marry. It’s actually quite improbable we’ll ever meet them.”

Baekhyun thinks back to Chanyeol in the fourth grade. The boy who moved away, never to be heard from again. Chanyeol was looking at him with shining eyes and tear-stained glasses as he showed him Baekhyun’s name engraved on his wrist.

Another concern comes to mind as he looks down at the pale skin on his wrist and the Chinese characters etched there forever. 

Chanyeol, with Baekhyun’s name on his wrist. 

Baekhyun, with a name written in a foreign language on his.

“What if you meet your soulmate and the name on their wrist isn’t yours?” Baekhyun asks with genuine curiosity.

His parents exchange strange looks again at the question their son has posed. This time, it’s his father who speaks.

“It happens all the time. You can’t help it. Shitty system. Some people’s tattoo’s don’t match, some people don’t get tattoos,” his father says with a gruff laugh. 

His mother hits his father’s arm for swearing in front of the kids, although his brother is already in his first year of university. Her eyes crinkle at the sides as she smiles at his father, and Baekhyun thinks that not finding your soulmate can’t be a bad thing, really, if it makes his tired mother this happy. She’s laughing with her mouth open when his father cracks another joke, and soon the whole table erupts with laughter so forceful that the table shakes a little.

Baekhyun’s father splits up with his mother three months later when he meets his soulmate.

 

 

 

Baekhyun is in the seventh grade when he meets Kyungsoo and Jongin.

He’s running, just like he always is, preparing for his eight hundred metre race. He’s slathered in sunscreen because his mother told him to be careful with the skin on his legs, rubbing in the sunscreen until there was an intense white cast on every visible part of his body.

He feels a little gross, but shrugs it off and tries to focus on putting his two feet in front of him, one after the other. He tries not to focus on the sun that’s boring into his back, making his vision hazy and his backside slick with sweat.

Instead, he concentrates on how free he feels when he runs. How free he feels as he watches the pavement zoom by beneath his feet.

It doesn’t work.

By now, he’s panting from the heat and he thinks it wouldn’t be too bad of an idea to take a shortcut back to his house. After all, his mother would prefer much more that he came home a little earlier than not come home at all if he fainted from the heat. 

It’s only forty– fifty, actually– metres off his usual route. The distance is minuscule, but Baekhyun tries another route anyway in an attempt to find solace in running twenty seconds less than he usually does. This part of his neighborhood has much more shade, and he’s grateful for what little relief the tall trees provide him.

He takes a left, then a right. He runs straight for a while before he realizes he went wrong somewhere in his path. He turns back and turns around again when he gets confused.

Baekhyun is a little scared and is much hotter and sweatier than he was ten minutes ago. His run slows down to a walk as he tries to take in his surroundings and go back the way he came. After taking another wrong turn, his efforts prove fruitless as he ends up at an ice cream store in the city he has never seen before. He walks in and a bell rings above his head.

“Hello.”

The voice from the man at the counter is deep and monotone, and Baekhyun swivels his head to find a middle-aged man staring daggers at him from the counter. Uncomfortable under the man’s gaze, Baekhyun shifts his weight from side to side and avoids eye contact.

“Hello, _ahjussi._ I got lost while I was running outside and I ended up in your store. I don’t know how to get home and I could really use some help,” Baekhyun says quickly.

No words come from the man standing at the counter, and Baekhyun half expects him to shout at Baekhyun to get out if he isn’t buying anything. When Baekhyun finally looks up, he realizes the man left his position at the counter long ago and is now bringing another man into the room. This _ahjussi_ seems much nicer than the other with a smile glued to his face and sun-kissed, bronze skin that makes it look like he spends much of his time outside.

“I’m not good with kids, _Nini,_ ” the gruff man from earlier says, organizing a set of utensils in the back of the room. “Handle this one for me.”

Baekhyun now attaches the name _Nini_ to the smiling man. Nini tackles the stone-faced man with a bright hug and instantly agrees to help Baekhyun get home, saying that it would be his pleasure before he walks around the counter. He bends down to Baekhyun’s height and asks for his name, and Baekhyun introduces himself with a stutter because Nini is very, very handsome.

(Baekhyun ignores the fact that Nini appears to be the same age as his father the last time he saw him nine months ago.)

“Nice to meet you, Baekhyun. My name is Jongin and that grumpy guy over there is Kyungsoo.” Jongin gestures to the quiet man in the corner, and Baekhyun thinks that he would much prefer to call Jongin _Nini_ instead of his given name, but he doesn’t want to be rude.

“I got lost while I was running,” Baekhyun repeats. “Where is this? My mom is probably worried about me by now.”

Jongin places a friendly hand on Baekhyun’s shoulder, and Baekhyun feels his cheeks warm up. He desperately hopes that he doesn’t smell like sweat.

“This is our ice cream shop– _Kim’s Ice Cream Shoppe_ – and it would be totally fine if you wanted to call your mother or something. You can wait for her here, have some ice cream while you’re at it.”

Baekhyun nods and Jongin guides him to the shop’s telephone, a gentle hand on Baekhyun’s shoulder the whole while. On the phone, Baekhyun’s mother is loud and angry when he tells her he tried to take a shortcut but got lost on his usual run. She tells him she’ll be there in a second, and tells him to apologize to the men at the ice cream store (“it’s a _shoppe,_ ” Baekhyun corrects her) for causing them so much trouble.

“Would you like a cone? Wafer cone, chocolate cone– it’s on us,” Jongin says with a grin.

Again, Baekhyun blushes and shyly asks for a regular cone with a scoop of strawberry ice cream. But before Jongin hands him his ice cream cone, Kyungsoo tells him to wait and places a bright red strawberry on top of the scoop. Kyungsoo doesn’t meet his eyes and looks away abashedly. He glares at Jongin who giggles and calls Kyungsoo cute repeatedly before wrapping the smaller man in a hug.

Baekhyun has his face buried in his strawberry ice cream the whole time, but he looks up when Jongin hugs Kyungsoo. Jongin’s sleeves ride up just a little, and Baekhyun sees Kyungsoo’s name in black tattooed onto Jongin’s wrist. When Kyungsoo stubbornly raises his arms to push Jongin away, Baekhyun catches a glimpse of what is undoubtedly Jongin’s matching name on the inside of his wrist. 

Something in Baekhyun’s heart twists, and a picture of his father and his mother sitting at their dinner table come to mind.

“You’re soulmates,” Baekhyun blurts out after Jongin is finished laughing and Kyungsoo is no longer red in the cheeks.

Jongin doesn’t seem to mind Baekhyun’s sudden observation, and simply pulls Kyungsoo closer with a fond look in his eyes.

“We are,” Jongin says, shaking his left hand and drawing Baekhyun’s attention to a golden wedding right on his ring finger. “Known him for forty years and counting!”

“Unfortunately,” Kyungsoo mutters, but Baekhyun can see the corners of his mouth raise when Jongin raises Kyungsoo’s hand too to show his matching wedding ring.

“What’s it like?” Baekhyun asks. “To find your soulmate. Are you two happy?”

Kyungsoo eyes him for a moment before replying, “We’re not perfect. But finding your soulmate is a very special thing. I would say we’re quite happy.”

“My dad left my mom because he found his soulmate,” Baekhyun suddenly tells Kyungsoo and Jongin. “Is it a bad thing for me to wish that he never did? Even if he’s happy?”

Jongin gives a loud gasp while Kyungsoo smacks him on the arm and remains stoic. Although, Baekhyun still can tell he’s surprised by the way his eyebrows raise just a hair. There’s an awkward silence in the air only filled with the sound of Baekhyun licking his ice cream cone, and it’s Jongin who breaks it.

“I’m sorry that happened to you,” he says with his eyebrows raised sympathetically. “And I don’t think I should be telling you how to feel. It’s completely fine for you to feel the way that you do. I know it’s a tough time for you.”

Baekhyun nods, and he’s about to open his mouth to reply, but he’s interrupted by his mother who rushes in, breathing hard and red in the face.

“Baekhyun! Where did you go? Do you know how worried you made me? Look at the trouble you’ve caused for these two gentlemen. I am _so_ sorry for my son’s behavior. Baekhyun, bow and apologize.”

After Baekhyun’s mother tries to pay for the cone Baekhyun is stuffing into his mouth and after Kyungsoo and Jongin politely refuse her money, he sits in the car looking at the ice cream place fading away behind them. His mother is telling him not to stray from his usual path and blabs on about other things such as what they’re having for dinner, but Baekhyun doesn’t listen to her. With his face pressed against the cold glass of their car, he watches the ice cream shop– _Kim’s Ice Cream Shoppe_ – get smaller and smaller as they drive away. The car halts to a stop at a red light, and Baekhyun memorizes the intersection.

From then on, if Baekhyun is running a longer route than usual, he’ll visit Kyungsoo and Jongin and sit in their shop with a strawberry ice cream cone in hand. 

 

 

 

Baekhyun is in the tenth grade when he meets Chanyeol again.

This time, again, he feels Chanyeol before he sees him.

Baekhyun is running across the hallway, cursing himself for not waking up on time for his first class. It’s the third day in a row he’s done this, and he blesses his mother for training him to be a runner because he’s arrived at school the first two days with minutes to spare after his mini-marathon.

He’s pretty sure he’ll be able to make it to this class too, although he’s cutting it close this time. Baekhyun looks below him and watches the school tiles zoom past him, watches the floor fly by beneath him. He looks up and sees his first period classroom ten, nine metres away. He’s almost there–

There’s a loud crash, and Baekhyun barely registers he’s bumped into someone before all of his books fall out of his bag and onto the ground. 

He rubs his sore butt from where he awkwardly landed on the floor, giving a groan. Baekhyun notices that the person he bumped into didn’t budge an inch, and in his confusion, he looks up to see a tall boy looking down at him in surprise.

The boy has a look of pure shock on his face, and he and Baekhyun stare at each other for far too long until the boy bends down to help Baekhyun pick up his things. Baekhyun trips on his words when he mutters an apology for bumping into the taller boy; he’s caught off guard by how handsome he is.

A pair of pretty, doe-like eyes. An awkward pair of elf-like ears that protrude out of his head at odd angles.

These are the first two things Baekhyun notices about the boy.

His features are baby-like, to say the least. His mop of brown hair is a curly mess, but Baekhyun thinks that it looks good on him and accentuates his eyes. His lips are thicker than Baekhyun’s, and his jawline more defined. 

“Have we met before?” 

Baekhyun is standing up now and is dusting off the dirt on his uniform when he hears the boy speak. The boy’s deep voice startles him, and he almost drops the books he’s holding in his arms. 

He looks up, and the boy has a look of absolute mirth on his face. His smile stretches across his face and one of his eyes is a different size than the other. Baekhyun thinks that he’s still handsome, although he knows the boy’s abrupt enthusiasm is strange and unexpected.

“Maybe,” Baekhyun replies nonchalantly as he tucks his books into his messenger bag. “My name is Baekhyun. Sorry again for bumping into you.”

“Park Chanyeol,” the boy says, extending a hand out to Baekhyun. Baekhyun takes it, and is surprised by how firm Chanyeol’s grip is compared to his own.

“Chanyeol? Park Chanyeol?” Baekhyun gasps, and memories of meeting Chanyeol in the fourth grade suddenly come flooding back into his brain.

“I-I thought you were, well, I mean–”

“Fat?” The laughter that bubbles from Chanyeol is warm and deep, and Baekhyun turns a deep shade of crimson when he hears Chanyeol’s reply. He’s mortified for bringing up Chanyeol’s dark past and desperately hopes that he didn’t offend him.

“Sorry about that,” Baekhyun begins, but Chanyeol is shaking his head and patting Baekhyun on the shoulder.

“People can change a lot in five years. I lost some weight, ditched the glasses. I hope that Park ‘Fatcake’ Chanyeol isn’t too unattractive for you.”

Baekhyun is stuttering again, and he hears Chanyeol laugh once more when Baekhyun says that he’s handsome. He feels his face turning red and he’s embarrassed, but it doesn’t feel bad like it did before. He ends up laughing, and notices that Chanyeol has a prominent dimple whenever he smiles.

Chanyeol sends him a wink, and at the same time, the bell rings and Baekhyun realizes he’s late for his first period class. He gathers his things and tells Chanyeol he has to go, and Chanyeol tells him they should hang out sometime. Baekhyun waves at him in acknowledgment before he runs to his classroom, and notices that Chanyeol stares at him the whole time he runs down the hallway.

***

Baekhyun sees Chanyeol around school a lot these days– or rather, he hears about him more often than he sees him.

The girls in his class are going crazy about the first year in the other class with the pointy ears and the curly hair. 

“He’s so _tall,_ ” Baekhyun overhears one girl gush. “I can’t believe he’s in our grade.”

The comments annoy him a little, especially since Baekhyun knows that Chanyeol hasn’t always looked like this. He hasn’t always been a heartthrob for the girls, and he hasn’t always made Baekhyun’s heart beat a little faster too with his boyish smile and his–

Wait.

(Baekhyun inwardly retracts his previous comment because Chanyeol is _not_ handsome in the least, at least to him. He vowed a long time ago that soulmates weren’t his thing– not then, and definitely not now.)

Every time Chanyeol passes his classroom, usually on his way to another class, the girls squeal and he smiles back at them. Baekhyun thinks that their screaming is annoying, and his face contorts into a frown whenever this happens. But, Chanyeol never fails to lock eyes with Baekhyun who coincidentally has his seat next to the hallway, and he stares at Baekhyun intensely before springing into a bright smile again.

His gaze at that moment always leaves Baekhyun breathless, and he decides to switch seats with a girl across the classroom. 

One day after school, a month into the school year, Baekhyun catches Chanyeol waiting by his locker alone. The girls that fawn over him are nowhere to be seen, most likely because it’s an hour and a half after school ended. Baekhyun stays late for track and field, and he’s currently dressed in his gym uniform and sweating like a pig. The strong-smelling sunscreen slicked on his legs and his face make his skin shine like a lighthouse, but Chanyeol doesn’t seem to mind and only moves closer to Baekhyun when he reaches his locker.

“Hi.”

“Hello Chanyeol,” Baekhyun says curtly. “Do you need my help?”

“Yes. In fact, I was wondering if you wanted to walk home together. I think we both live the same way.”

Baekhyun lifts his head and raises an eyebrow in a question, but Chanyeol simply smiles at him in such a way that the weak sunlight hits his dimple. In his head, Baekhyun thinks that it’s weird for Chanyeol to try to make friends with him because as far as he’s concerned, they barely talked in elementary school and Chanyeol, in fact, currently has more friends than Baekhyun at their high school. 

But Baekhyun knows he can’t refuse him, knows that it would seem rude to, and is very inclined to say yes because Park Chanyeol is looking at him like _that._

He says _alright,_ and Chanyeol waits for him to gather his things before they leave.

“How’s life been these past six years? Heard you moved away. I’m not sure what made you want to come back to this small town.” Baekhyun tries to break the ice, and succeeds in doing so awkwardly.

“Moved away for family reasons. You know, parents splitting up. The usual.” Chanyeol shrugs as if he’s talking about something as trivial as the weather.

“I’m sorry,” Baekhyun says, a wave of empathy washing over him. “I can understand how you feel. My parents split up as well. It wasn’t the happiest time of my life, really.”

Chanyeol looks down at Baekhyun with a blank expression before winking at him and smiling again. 

“I guess we have something in common,” he says. “Although, if I recall correctly, one of our first conversations was pretty awkward. Sorry for being such a weird kid.”

Baekhyun suddenly remembers Chanyeol showing him Baekhyun’s name engraved on his wrist, and his eyes widen.

“No, no, you weren’t weird at all! I was the weird one for running away from you, honest. I didn’t mean to do that.”

Chanyeol laughs. “It’s okay. I actually don’t think it’s normal for people to declare you’re their soulmate the first time you meet.” He nods at Baekhyun and Baekhyun nods back in a strange sense of relief.

“I didn’t have many friends in fourth grade. Just bullies. I think that was my way of making friends, you know?”

A stab of guilt pricks at him, and Baekhyun tries to wave it away.

“Although, now that we’re older, I was wondering if we could put all that behind us. Start fresh, be friends. Would that be cool with you?” Chanyeol asks him. Baekhyun notices how Chanyeol placed an arm around Baekhyun when he wasn’t looking, and he feels his cheeks warm up.

“Yeah, that would be nice. And just so you know,” Baekhyun clarifies, “I don’t believe in the whole soulmates thing. Too cliché for me. Destiny sounds like a load of horse crap.”

Chanyeol raises his eyebrows, and smiles before saying that he agrees with Baekhyun, saying that he’s the first person he’s ever met who also shares his views on soulmates. The two launch into a raucous conversation about soulmates and school gossip until they arrive at Baekhyun’s house, his mother standing at the front entrance waiting for him.

“I’ve got to go,” Baekhyun says as his mother sends a suspicious glare at Chanyeol. “Walk home together tomorrow too?” 

“Definitely,” Chanyeol replies as he watches Baekhyun enter his home, the sun setting behind him. He lingers for a little, making eye contact with Baekhyun’s mother. Her droopy eyes are narrowed at him, and it looks like she’s about to ask him a question before she shuts the door in Chanyeol’s smiling face.

Chanyeol shrugs and turns around to go home, walking in the opposite direction they came from. He whistles all the way home.

***

For Baekhyun’s birthday, Chanyeol takes him to a dessert place in the centre of the town. It’s busy, but Chanyeol manages to snatch them a seat amidst the bustling activity of the shop and its customers. 

When they sit down, Chanyeol tells Baekhyun to order anything he wants and that he’s paying today, so Baekhyun orders a large slice of strawberry cheesecake. Chanyeol chooses a chocolate mousse cheesecake for himself. 

Baekhyun digs into the cheesecake with appreciation, making happy groans here and there (Chanyeol calls them puppy noises; Baekhyun disagrees with him). The creamy texture of the cake is divine on his tongue and cools him down from his usual track and field run. It’s at this moment that he truly grasps the benefits of being Chanyeol’s friend, and is relieved that he didn’t drive Chanyeol away that one day he asked him to walk home together after school.

The whole time Baekhyun eats, Chanyeol watches him, leaving his own cheesecake untouched. When Baekhyun notices and gestures to his cake, Chanyeol simply smiles and nudges his own plate towards Baekhyun. Baekhyun gratefully accepts the plate and begins eating it after he’s finished with his strawberry cheesecake, smiling and bobbing his head in happiness all the while.

Chanyeol’s staring at Baekhyun again, and Baekhyun offers him the last piece of his cheesecake, but Chanyeol declines.

“Sweets, in general, aren’t my thing,” Chanyeol says. “My grandmother used to run a bakery. Let’s just say that my childhood contained more sugar than necessary.”

Baekhyun laughs, saying, “My mother never lets me eat sweets. She says that they’ll ‘ruin my figure,’ so this is a pretty rare occasion for me.” He rolls his eyes when he mimics his mother, and stuffs the last bite of cheesecake into his mouth.

They finish their dessert and Chanyeol pays for the bill. Much to Baekhyun’s delight, they walk around the busier part of their town for a little longer with Chanyeol’s hand around Baekhyun’s waist the whole time. Baekhyun doesn’t complain and leans into the taller boy’s touch instead as he looks around lit-up stores and displays in the cool night air. 

Chanyeol is an absolute gentleman, Baekhyun thinks to himself, always walking him home although Baekhyun knows he secretly lives in the opposite direction from his house. Twice a week, Chanyeol waits for him for an hour after school to walk him home. Baekhyun isn’t completely oblivious. The line between friendship and courting is becoming a little blurry, and Baekhyun eyes Chanyeol’s hand gripping firmly onto his waist.

Baekhyun isn’t too sure why Chanyeol chose to become friends with _him_ of all people with his puny eyes and his bland features. Chanyeol moves with grace and charisma, charming everyone he meets. There isn’t anyone in the world who could refuse Chanyeol and his bright, blinding smile.

Chanyeol is the human embodiment of charm while Baekhyun is just a boy who runs– runs away from his problems, runs away from his mother. 

Looking at Chanyeol now, Baekhyun wonders where the timid boy from six years went, and what just happened to him in the time that he moved away. Park Chanyeol, now the heartthrob of their school. Park Chanyeol, now thin but still strong, unafraid of what anyone says about him. Park Chanyeol, a–

He catches it.

Chanyeol is staring into the streets as they wait for a stoplight, and for a sliver of a second, his expression darkens. His jaw clenches, and his nails dig a little too deep into Baekhyun’s side where he’s holding him. Baekhyun’s eyes widen and he doesn’t realize he’s still staring at Chanyeol’s face until Chanyeol looks down at him, eyes now bright and smiling at him.

“The light is green.”

He rips his gaze away from Chanyeol and swallows as he moves his feet one in front of the other. On the bus ride to his house, Chanyeol places his head on Baekhyun’s shoulder and closes his eyes, and Baekhyun thinks that he looks like an angel with his long eyelashes and peaceful sleeping face. 

He reprimands himself for ever thinking that there could be something wrong with Chanyeol.

***

“You _what?_ ”

Baekhyun is shivering in the doorway of their bathroom with a towel wrapped around him, hair still damp from his shower. He’s surprisingly small for a high schooler, and his mother towers over him.

“Chanyeol bought me cake for my birthday. I don’t think I can eat any more cake. He gave me his slice.”

Before he can continue, Baekhyun sees his mother’s hand move and slap him straight across the face. He whimpers and crumbles to the floor on his knees, towel falling off and his wet hair spraying water everywhere.

“I bought you a cake for your birthday, and you can’t even thank me for doing that by eating it. Why are you so ungrateful?”

Another hit, and this time it’s a kick that lands on his calf. Baekhyun falls to the floor and he feels a bruise forming on his leg where his mother kicked him. His face is scarlet with embarrassment as his ass is presented to his mother, naked as the day he was born.

“You’re looking more and more like him every day,” he hears his mother hiss. 

Baekhyun covers his face with his pretty, pretty hands so his mother doesn’t see him cry. 

“I’m sorry,” he sobs. “I’m sorry.”

With that, his mother’s anger dissolves and she looks at her hands in horror. She drops to her knees and crawls to where Baekhyun is laying on the floor. A broken sob comes from her chest as she cries, and she holds Baekhyun close to her chest.

“Your legs,” she wails. “Your beautiful, beautiful legs. I’m so sorry, Baekhyun.”

She goes on telling him how much she regrets ever laying a hand on him, how much the divorce has affected her and whispers that he’s her _baby_ and that she would never do anything to hurt him. She dresses him, dries his hair and puts him to bed.

Baekhyun hears his mother wish him a happy birthday before the door to his bedroom closes, and he’s left alone with nothing more than his thoughts to engulf him whole.

He wants to run.

 

 

 

Baekhyun is in the eleventh grade when he wakes up in a hospital bed for the first time.

To anybody else, waking up in a hospital might seem horrifying, but he considers the experience as being quite pleasant, really. Everything around him is white– the sheets, the walls, the curtains. Even his skin seems translucent in the cold lighting of the hospital room.

He notices that his room is silent and doesn’t have a heartbeat monitor incessantly beeping beside him like they usually do in the movies. He’s grateful for this, and drifts back to sleep a few more times. 

When Baekhyun wakes up again, his mouth is extremely dry and his eyes are crusty. He rubs at them before his notices one of his legs is sticking out of his blanket, and gasps, horrified at the amount of hair on it.

When was the last time he shaved?

His attention is stolen by his other leg that’s wrapped in a thick cast and is elevated on a pile of pillows. He wonders what happened to him and how bad it could have been to warrant him ending up in a hospital. By instinct, he tries to move his broken leg and gives a hoarse yelp when he feels pain shoot up his thighs.

Baekhyun hears footsteps come rushing towards his room, and he’s met with no one other than his best friend looking at him.

Chanyeol seems tired. Dark circles line his eyes and Baekhyun notes that Chanyeol has brought his favourite flavor of ice cream with him. The logo of _Kim’s Ice Cream Shoppe_ is bright and colourful on the wrapper of the cone, and Baekhyun’s face slowly contorts into a smile as Chanyeol walks closer.

His best friend is strangely calm as he tells Baekhyun to hold his ice cream and to stay put. Chanyeol tells a few nurses that Baekhyun’s awake, that he’s eating ice cream if that’s alright with them, and when the nurses argue with him, Chanyeol objects that he broke his leg and not his stomach. 

“How are you feeling?” Chanyeol asks Baekhyun when he’s settled and sitting beside his bed.

In between licks, Baekhyun replies, “I’m okay. My head hurts and my leg does too, but I’m alive.”

Chanyeol sends him a warm smile and his dimple shows. He places a hand on Baekhyun’s, and tells him that he’s glad.

“What happened?” Baekhyun enquires when he finishes his ice cream. “One minute I’m doing my usual run, another minute I’m in a hospital and I’m not wearing any underwear.” He shifts uncomfortably as the hospital scrubs chafe at his inner leg.

“A hit and run,” Chanyeol tells him. “The doctor said you might experience some memory loss from the trauma. Other than your leg, the rest of you is fine.”

When Baekhyun looks down at his leg stuck in a cast, the first thing that comes to mind is his mother.

“And my mom? Where is she? How come she isn’t here?”

Chanyeol grimaces. “She fainted when she heard the news, which was like, twelve hours ago. She’s up and running, though. Should be coming later to visit you.”

Baekhyun leans back in his bed and sighs. He tries to recollect what had happened before he was knocked out, and a few visions of a car and Chanyeol came to mind. Chanyeol was holding him tight, telling him to hold on, that he’ll be alright, and his voice was unexpectedly collected as he dialed the police. On the other hand, Baekhyun was hyperventilating, looking down at his left leg that was twisted to the side in a way that was _definitely_ not natural. His chest was rising, falling, rising, falling. Rising and falling at an alarming rate.

“My leg, Chanyeol, my _leg!_ ”

Baekhyun winces as a flash of pain sears through his head. He feels something slither across his chest and looks down to see it’s Chanyeol’s hand sliding up to cup his face.

“Are you sure you’re okay?”

He leans into Chanyeol’s touch, and closes his eyes. He hears Chanyeol’s breath hitch at this.

“I’m fine. Just a little tired.”

Chanyeol pinches his cheek, and Baekhyun opens his eyes to see Chanyeol grinning back at him. In his hands, he holds up a fancy box, and he opens it to reveal a slice of strawberry cheesecake.

“I know what’ll get you energized again,” Chanyeol says with a wink.

Baekhyun smiles at the kind gesture and begins devouring the cake like a mad man.

“Muff better,” Baekhyun says with his mouth full as he makes noises of appreciation. “Thankyew.”

***

Baekhyun spends three and a half months of his grade eleven year recovering from his broken leg. 

Candidly, he only spends two weeks in the hospital before he leaves on crutches. He refuses to use a wheelchair because he wants to get around places himself, although either way, Chanyeol hangs around him seven days a week. He’s always ready to help Baekhyun in one way or another– be it holding his bag or opening the door for him. Chanyeol comes with him to his physical therapy sessions although he doesn’t have to. But, he knows Baekhyun’s mother is bed-ridden and devastated so he accompanies Baekhyun anyway.

It’s difficult at first catching up with the school work he missed in the hospital, and even more so with a broken leg, but Baekhyun tries his hardest to get used to living a normal life again. Chanyeol watches with respect in his eyes at Baekhyun’s efforts.

The worst part of the whole ordeal is probably his mother who will not and cannot stop lamenting about his leg. It pains her to see Baekhyun in his cast, so he avoids her as much as possible, doing his laundry and cooking for himself. His brother has returned to the house from his fancy job at Seoul to take care of his mother. She seems to have been struck with a strange illness, and isn’t able to leave her bed. 

Baekhyun has never talked with his brother very much, but the two exchange glances from the entrance to his mother’s bedroom whenever he passes by. He sees how hard his brother works to nurse his mother back to health, and doesn’t feel lonely when he eats dinner alone.

After all, with the press of a button and a short call, Chanyeol comes running to help Baekhyun.

He’s not lonely at all.

Two months into his recovery, Baekhyun receives news from his doctor that he may never be able to run normally again. Irreparable nerve and tissue damage, his doctor says. He’ll still be able to walk, albeit with a slight limp, and go through most daily activities as usual, but competitive running is out of the question. His doctor tells him it may be years before he can set foot on the track again. 

The news is crushing and Baekhyun feels like his heart is being smashed into a million pieces.

His mother doesn’t take the news very well either.

A somber mood settles over the house when everyone learns of the information concerning his leg. Baekhyun arrives home later and later, usually hanging around Chanyeol’s empty house until the sun sets. Chanyeol lives alone and lets Baekhyun sleep over on more than one occasion. If this were before the accident, his mother would throw a fit. Now, she simply sleeps all day and can’t bear to look at him.

Baekhyun doesn’t like the heavy air or the dark atmosphere in his own house. If he could, he would move in with Chanyeol and leave his miserable mother and brother behind.

Sometimes, Baekhyun wonders how his father would react if he knew what had become of their happy family.

***

After Baekhyun’s leg completely heals and he’s clear of hospital check-ups and physical therapy, he gets a summer job at Kyungsoo and Jongin’s ice cream shop.

When they see him walk in without any crutches, the two of them hoot and cheer loudly.

“Baekhyun, you’re walking!” Kyungsoo exclaims.

“You’re doing so well, Baekkie,” Jongin gushes. “We’re very proud of you. You’ve come a long way.”

Baekhyun rolls his eyes and strides forward, despite the slight limp in his step. He walks around the counter and ties on a white apron, and washes his hands to start his shift.

“You guys are like doting old parents,” he says, faking annoyance. “It was just a broken bone. Nothing big.”

Kyungsoo and Jongin choose not to bring up Baekhyun and his running when he brushes off his accident as if it were nothing.

“Anyway, Baekhyun,” Kyungsoo starts, “we’re grateful for the extra hand around here, especially since Jongin is going to Seoul to oversee the new location.”

Baekhyun shrugs and puts on a pair of clean gloves. “I wasn’t going to do anything this summer, anyway. I just don’t want to stick around at home. It’s really depressing back there.”

“Either way, it’s good for you to get some experience in the working world,” Jongin cuts in. “Who knows? Maybe one day you’ll be opening up shop somewhere in Seoul! _Byun’s Ice Cream_ – I can see it now in neon-coloured letters.”

“Well, now that my dreams of being an Olympic athlete are dead, I might just go do that.” Baekhyun laughs dryly, and Kyungsoo and Jongin exchange looks.

“Baekhyun.” Kyungsoo places a hand on Baekhyun’s arm as he stacks cones and cups, preparing to open shop.

“Yes, mother?” 

“If there’s anything– anything at all you want to tell us, you know that we would be glad to listen. We would do anything for you. You know that.”

“I’d rob a bank and sell one of my kidneys for this little guy,” Jongin interjects. He smiles and tries to brighten the mood, but Kyungsoo elbows him in the rib.

“Thank you, you two,” Baekhyun replies. And he means it. He brings the two men into an awkward hug, and once he lets go, Jongin’s eyes are misty.

“I think I’m doing alright. Really,” Baekhyun adds. Kyungsoo and Jongin look at him for a moment before Jongin bursts into hysterics about how Baekhyun is turning into a man. Kyungsoo waves him off and tells him to make another batch of strawberry ice cream before he leaves for Seoul, and the two shoot sarcastic remarks back and forth at each other.

Baekhyun watches the exchange with a warm look in his eyes. He takes note of the crow’s feet beginning to form around Jongin’s eyes, and Kyungsoo’s balding head. They’re getting older, he realizes, and the thought strikes a sudden sadness from deep within him.

He looks at the matching rings glistening on their fingers, the ones that neither of them takes off even when they’re working, and he looks back at their matching tattoos. He reminisces about the help these two have given him in the past four years and wonders what kind of person he would be if he had never met them. How in the world did he stumble upon such positive, kind people?

“What is it, Baekkie?” Jongin asks when he catches him standing around and looking at the floor. The couple pause in their conversation to look at Baekhyun.

“I was just thinking,” Baekhyun says truthfully, “that I’ll miss you guys when I leave for university.”

This time, both Jongin and Kyungsoo give little squeals as they crush him under a large hug.

 

 

 

Baekhyun is in the twelfth grade when he loses his virginity.

His first time, to say the least, is pretty scary and even hurts a little, but Baekhyun thinks that it’s probably the most memorable event in all of his eighteen years of living. He also learns that sex involves much more patience and bodily fluids that he thought it did. 

It happens at a party. Kim Junmyeon’s party, to be exact.

Junmyeon is the son of the richest man in their city and claims that his father is the CEO of a tampon company with its business mainly overseas. Baekhyun isn’t sure how much of Junmyeon’s talk about his family is real and how much of it is exaggerated, but the story seems believable enough when he finally goes to the boy’s house.

Junmyeon’s house– a mansion, really– is so big that Baekhyun initially thought it was a church. It’s built the way Westerners like their buildings, with its stone walls and metal gate that strongly give Baekhyun the impression he’s in some European country. The front lawn is covered in green, luscious grass and Junmyeon brags that their family has a personal gardener working for them.

While Junmyeon’s house is huge and its layout makes Baekhyun’s head spin, the sheer amount of people in the building by the middle of the night makes the house look much smaller. Every square inch of it is either covered in trash or a person. Baekhyun is aware that basically nobody at the party is of legal drinking age, but Junmyeon tells him to ‘let go for once, Baekhyun’ and that it’s the ‘graduation party that their school can’t afford to pay for.’

By eleven p.m., Baekhyun begins to grow bored of the party and sits by himself on a couch.

A couple of people from his school walk over to him, and he recognizes them as kids he shared most of his classes with. If he wasn’t sitting with Chanyeol, he would hang around them, and was usually working with them if he had to work in a group for a project.

Minseok plops down next to him and takes a swig from Baekhyun’s drink.

“Having fun, Baekhyun?” Minseok smells like cheap beer and strong cologne, but his smile is friendly and he lazily puts an arm around Baekhyun.

“Of course he is. This is the party of the year– you’ve got alcohol, food and music! Tons of fun.”

Baekhyun looks up and sends a smile to Jongdae, his chemistry partner for the past two years in a row.

“I was asking _him,_ not you, you prick.” Minseok rolls his eyes at Jongdae who takes a seat on the other side of Baekhyun.

“Sorry, Baekhyun.” Jongdae responds by pushing up his thick-framed glasses with his middle finger to Minseok. “How are you finding the party?”

“I’m enjoying myself. Just a little tired. Parties tire me out,” Baekhyun lies. He’s bored out of his fucking mind and wants to go home.

“Totally feel you, dude,” Minseok says while downing the rest of Baekhyun’s beer. He didn’t really want it, anyway. “I could pass out right now and the party just got started.”

“Alright, alright, tell you what. Actually, Minseok, you tell him. I’m going to mess it up,” Jongdae says with his leg bouncing up and down in excitement.

“No, you!”

“No, YOU!”

“Your mom is gay,” Minseok retaliates.

Jongdae gives up and raises both of his hands in capitulation. 

“Baekhyun, we were going to ask if you wanted to live with us when university starts next month. We’re all going to the same institute, anyway. We’ve been looking at a nice flat near the downtown campus, and another person would be nice to pay the rent.”

Baekhyun’s eyes widen in surprise, and he considers the idea for a few minutes, looking back between Minseok and Jongdae a few times.

“I don’t have anyone to room with, and I’m not living on campus,” Baekhyun begins thoughtfully. “That actually sounds–”

“Shit!”

Baekhyun is interrupted by an irritated Minseok, and when he looks up, he sees Chanyeol walking towards them, surrounded by a group of girls. He looks good tonight, Baekhyun thinks, with his red hair parted on one side and his skin glistening with sweat.

“What’s wrong?” Baekhyun asks. Although he’s a little pissed that Chanyeol took to hanging out with his circle of friends for the past hour, he knows it’s petty of him to keep Chanyeol all for himself.

“Chanyeol’s nothing but trouble,” Minseok says. “He always gives us shit for hanging out with you when we’ve literally done nothing wrong.” Minseok’s hand wildly gesticulates from where it rests on Baekhyun’s shoulder.

“Oh god, is he heading over _here?_ ” Jongdae almost screeches.

When Chanyeol finally reaches the couch after what feels like a very slow few minutes, Baekhyun notices that his cheeks are tinted red and his eyes are unfocused. Chanyeol turns his nose at Minseok and Jongdae, and pulls Baekhyun from where he’s sitting on the couch and into his arms. Minseok’s arm dangles on thin air while Jongdae is suddenly very interested in readjusting his large glasses.

“Baekhyun, we’ve got to go.” Chanyeol smells like cheap beer too and his face is a little too close to Baekhyun’s liking. He snakes an arm around Baekhyun’s waist.

“Chanyeol, wait. You’re drunk. Calm down for a second.”

At Baekhyun’s rebuke, Chanyeol furrows his brows and drags Baekhyun so hard he stumbles. From behind him, Baekhyun can hear Minseok and Jongdae yelling something about his broken leg, but Chanyeol pays them no mind and he strides across the living room while Baekhyun struggles to keep up.

“What was that about?” Baekhyun hisses. First, Chanyeol ignores him, and now he’s _offended_ that Baekhyun was hanging out with someone other than him?

“You know I don’t like it when you’re around those two,” Chanyeol mutters. “They don’t like me. They try to turn you against me.”

Baekhyun falters. “What do you mean? Minseok and Jongdae are the nicest people at our school.”

Chanyeol shakes his head, and Baekhyun vaguely registers they’re heading for the second floor. 

“They just don’t get you like I do,” Chanyeol slurs. “We’re soulmates, after all. Nobody’ll ever get you like I do.”

At the word _soulmates,_ Baekhyun blushes and trips again on the stairs, but Chanyeol catches him this time and brings his other arm around Baekhyun’s waist. He’s hugging Baekhyun’s body close to him, so close that their stomachs touch, and he dips his head to kiss the other boy.

The kiss comes as a surprise to Baekhyun. They had kissed before, but it was never this deep, this sensual. Chanyeol roughly moves his lips against Baekhyun’s, trying to mold his lips into his, and his hands come down to grope Baekhyun’s ass.

At this, Baekhyun whispers, “Wait.” Chanyeol stops his administrations and looks down at Baekhyun in confusion.

“What are you trying to do?” Baekhyun asks, anxiety stirring in his gut.

“Guess,” Chanyeol says and he places a hand on Baekhyun’s chin and lifts his head. He closes the distance between them in a searing kiss, and Baekhyun feels Chanyeol’s arousal poke against his belly button.

Baekhyun breaks the kiss. “If we’re going to do something, can we please go somewhere private?” He pleads.

Chanyeol is giving him that blank look again before he reluctantly nods and lets go of him. They walk up the stairs and into one of Junmyeon’s fancy guest bedrooms, Baekhyun limping a little the whole way, and Chanyeol shuts the door behind them. He starts kissing Baekhyun again.

Baekhyun is more than scared as Chanyeol starts pulling Baekhyun’s jacket off of him, and then begins unbuttoning his shirt. Although he’s painfully turned on and Chanyeol’s kisses make his stomach feel a little funny, he still wants to know just what the fuck Chanyeol is trying to pull. He places his hands on Chanyeol’s chest and pushes, gently.

“I’m scared, Chanyeol,” Baekhyun says quietly. Chanyeol is looking at him with unprecedented worry in his eyes and he lifts Baekhyun off of his feet and to the bed.

When Baekhyun is seated on the bed, Chanyeol gets down on his knees and holds onto one of Baekhyun’s pretty hands.

“I want to go further with you, Baek,” he says as he plants a kiss on the slender hand in front of him. “I just want to make the both of us feel good. I won’t hurt you.”

Baekhyun’s pretty sure his face is a dark pink, and he’s glad that the lighting in the room is extremely dim. He doesn’t reply to Chanyeol. He just chews on the inside of his mouth.

“Can I do that, Baek? Make you feel good? Do I have your consent?”

There’s another pregnant pause as Baekhyun nervously clenches and unclenches his jaw, and when he opens his mouth to speak, Chanyeol looks at him like a kicked puppy with his eyes wide and his head tilted to the side.

“Ye–”

He’s cut off by Chanyeol tackling him onto the bed with a cry of joy, and he feels the mattress beneath them bounce with the sudden impact of two bodies. Chanyeol’s laughing and Baekhyun’s laughing too, and some of his fear dissipates into happiness as Chanyeol abruptly peppers his face with kisses.

Getting undressed is a slow process, but Baekhyun admires the way Chanyeol rips off his clothes and how his muscles glint with sweat in the weak lighting. He’s a little embarrassed when he strips himself of his own clothes, thin with no meat on his bones from his time in the hospital, but Chanyeol runs his hands down Baekhyun’s chest and tells him that he’s beautiful. 

The foreplay is a slow process too. Baekhyun actually enjoys it very much as Chanyeol pampers him and stretches him out with his fingers slicked in strawberry lube (they found it in the drawer next to them). Chanyeol kisses him the whole time, whispering into Baekhyun’s ear for him to relax and that he would take care of everything. Baekhyun clings onto Chanyeol like he’s his lifeline, whimpering whenever Chanyeol sticks in a new finger, and Chanyeol kisses away the pain and makes Baekhyun focus on the fluttering in his stomach.

When the time comes for Chanyeol to enter Baekhyun, he asks if they can do it raw and Baekhyun lets him because Chanyeol told him it would feel better for the both of them.

“Tell me if it hurts,” Chanyeol murmurs, raising Baekhyun’s legs above his head and kissing at a scar on the inside of his knee.

He sheathes himself inside of Baekhyun, nice and slow, and Baekhyun gives another whimper when he feels the burn of a tighter stretch. And holy shit, does it _hurt._ Chanyeol gives him time to adjust the foreign feeling at the bottom of his stomach, and they lie there, breathing heavily. They look at each other for a few seconds until Chanyeol moves an inch and Baekhyun’s eyes flutter in pleasure. A loud moan slips from him, sultry and needy.

“I’ll take that means it feels good,” Chanyeol laughs, and he starts moving back and forth very slowly.

Albeit the initial burst of pain, Baekhyun doesn’t think he’s ever felt this good in his life. It feels much different than when he does it alone with only his fingers to satisfy him. His toes curl and his back arches in pleasure and Chanyeol keeps telling him he’s beautiful, that he’s the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen in his entire life.

When Chanyeol sets a faster pace, the moans start slipping out of Baekhyun again, and he can’t stop them. It feels like he’s flying, and he’s feeling freer than ever. The sensation that he’s running again and watching the pavement fly by below him suddenly fills his veins and pumps him full of adrenaline. 

He hasn’t felt this way in a while. 

Above him, Chanyeol’s breathing is quick and laboured, and Baekhyun thinks that Chanyeol looks so _handsome_ with his hair slicked to his sweaty face. 

“Finally,” Chanyeol chants as he pounds into him over and over again. “Finally, finally, fucking _finally._ ”

“Harder, please,” Baekhyun breathes, and Chanyeol complies.

“Baek, listen to me,” Chanyeol says in between thrusts, slowing down just a little. Baekhyun looks up at him from where he’s clinging onto Chanyeol’s back, his gaze serious and expectant.

“I like you. I like you so much. I always have, ever since you told me to stop being a pussy at my scraped elbow in fourth grade.”

Baekhyun bursts into laughter, and Chanyeol scowls at him, but he just can’t help it. He’s so happy. He’s just so happy for some reason, and he feels tears prick at the back of his eyes. His laughter cuts into a moan when Chanyeol slams into him particularly hard, and he feels his painfully hard dick leak a little. 

Chanyeol leans in to whisper into Baekhyun’s ear, and tells Baekhyun he likes him over and over again. Each time, Baekhyun clenches just a little tighter around Chanyeol, and when Chanyeol says that he _loves_ him instead of _likes_ him, Baekhyun comes undone and ejaculates onto himself.

Long after Chanyeol comes inside of Baekhyun, he’s still giggling and shaking and hard as a rock. He feels like he’s sprinting a marathon and there’s so much pleasure coursing through him– so much _happiness._ It takes ten minutes for him to come down from his high.

He feels Chanyeol intertwine his fingers with his own while his eyes are still closed, and tears start forming at the back of his eyes again. Something in his head screams for him not to open his eyes, screams at him that _this is DANGEROUS_ and that he shouldn’t fall for it. Shouldn’t fall for Chanyeol.

But Baekhyun opens his eyes and sees Chanyeol’s sparkling eyes staring back at him, and the tears free-fall down the side of his face.

“It’s okay,” Chanyeol says, “if you need some time. It’s okay if the name on your wrist doesn’t match mine, either.”

At the mention of his tattoo, Baekhyun looks down and sees the Chinese characters he still doesn’t know how to read after seventeen and a half years. Suddenly, the image of his father and his mother sitting at their dinner table comes to mind. He’s twelve years old when his father finds his soulmate.

The voice in his head is telling him that it’s dangerous again.

“You’re my soulmate, Baekhyun, and that’s all that matters, even if I’m not yours. It’s okay.”

His mother sits at their dinner table alone, Baekhyun and his brother long gone from the house. She sits where his father used to sit during dinner, and her droopy eyes flutter closed as she falls asleep.

“Move in with me. Don’t move in with Jongdae or Minseok. Live with me, and only me. Please, Baekhyun?”

The voice is so loud now that it hurts his head and makes the two places place his left leg was broken ache. It’s telling him if he doesn’t stop now, it’ll be too late. It’s telling him to listen to his mother. It’s telling him it knows he’s a good boy.

He’s mommy’s little boy, after all.

Baekhyun looks up at Chanyeol and whispers so quietly he isn’t sure if Chanyeol heard him at first, but he knows he did from the way Chanyeol smiles and his dimple forms on his left cheek.

“Okay.”

(Baekhyun is in the twelfth grade when he moves in with Chanyeol.)

 

 

 

Baekhyun is in his second year of university when he meets his soulmate.

He’s a little taller than he was in high school, and his features are now less girlish and a little more masculine. His walk is more confident, his limp less apparent. His hair has grown out to fluffy, black bangs that block his vision. While absentmindedly playing with the dark locks, he thinks to himself that he needs a haircut.

University has been everything he was expecting, and more. As he walks briskly down the road outside of his department, he smiles to himself when he thinks of his classes and his teachers. He still doesn’t have many friends, aside from the frequent calls he gives to Kyungsoo and Jongin, but he doesn’t see this to be a bad thing when he has Chanyeol. Chanyeol is more than his boyfriend, after all– he swears that he’s his soulmate, and that’s all he needs from Chanyeol to be with him. 

Baekhyun is heading for the subway, ready to go home to the place he shares with his boyfriend. He struggles a little with a shopping bag in his left hand and his messenger bag in the other. He’s making dinner tonight, cooking being something he picked up rather quickly when he entered university.

He’s thinking of the tofu dish he plans to make at home when he feels a little strange. The night air is suddenly a little too warm. His heart beats a little faster. His palms feel a little damp. He chalks it off to the copious amount of people around him heading for the subway too.

At the stoplight outside of the subway station, Baekhyun meets eyes with a man on the other side. He’s wearing a formal dress shirt paired with a black blazer and some slacks, and his hair is absolutely glorious as it defies gravity above his head. 

When he looks back at Baekhyun, he sends him a surprised smile and Baekhyun feels the world around them pause for a moment.

And then he’s running.

Baekhyun is running through the streets like a mad man, his heart thundering in his chest and his palms beginning to drip with sweat. He drops three apples and a box of tofu in his dash across the street, but he doesn’t care and runs as far away from the subway station as possible. He turns down an alleyway and feels a sharp pain in his left leg. Baekhyun drops to the floor with an anguished cry.

He’s not too sure why, but as he looks down at the floor on his knees, he feels the strongest urge to cry. Like a waterfall, after the first tear falls from his eye, he can’t stop crying and he feels something constrict in his chest and choke him.

Ten minutes pass and Baekhyun manages to make himself look somewhat presentable. He picks up a few fallen apples around him and takes a different route home that night.

The whole subway ride home, Baekhyun can’t get the man in the black blazer out of his head. He was handsome, Baekhyun thinks, and he didn’t look Korean to him. When he smiled at Baekhyun, his eyes curved into little crescents and his gaze was gentle. Baekhyun isn’t sure why he ran, but he did, and he’s second guessing himself now. He’s wondering if it was the right choice to make at that time.

Baekhyun remembers that the man had a dimple on the right side of his face.

***

At these moments when Chanyeol is embracing him, Baekhyun thinks that he feels the safest.

Chanyeol is sleeping soundly behind him and his arms are wrapped around Baekhyun like a cocoon. Baekhyun can feel his naked chest gently rising and falling behind him, and he can still feel Chanyeol inside him from their lovemaking a few minutes ago.

(Baekhyun knows it’s technically just sex, but Chanyeol insists on calling it ‘lovemaking.’ He says it’s because they’re in love.)

He shifts around and winces when he feels a dull pain in his backside, and he gently scooches his lower half across the bed until Chanyeol is fully unsheathed. Now he can turn around, and when he does, he realizes the other man is awake, eyes wide open.

Strong arms pull him back to Chanyeol’s side so they’re lying chest to chest.

“You okay?” Chanyeol asks him, his calloused fingers gently squeezing at a place on Baekhyun’s thigh.

“I’m okay,” Baekhyun whispers. “Sorry for waking you up. You can go back to sleep.”

Chanyeol breathes in deeply before speaking again.

“Want to talk?”

“About what?”

“You seemed strange when you came home. Did anything happen?”

And then the magic dissipates into nothing, and Baekhyun is left staring at Chanyeol blankly in the queen-sized bed that they share. The man from the stoplight fills his thoughts and intoxicates him, and Baekhyun wonders if he’s similar to Chanyeol. Would he fall asleep right after making love to him? Would he tell Baekhyun that he’s a beautiful thing, that he’s prettiest when he’s scrawled naked across the bed?

“Did you feel anything when you first met me?”

“When I first met you?” Chanyeol echoes Baekhyun’s question. His eyebrows raise.

“Anything weird happen?

“Well,” Chanyeol begins, “When I first saw you, I think that I felt like crying.”

Baekhyun’s heart begins thundering in his head again.

“It sounds kind of cheesy, but the moment I saw you running towards me, it felt like time froze for a second. I froze too. Couldn’t get out of the way in time.”

“Hm,” is all Baekhyun says.

“Why? Did something happen?”

Chanyeol is looking down at Baekhyun with an expressionless face, and Baekhyun knows it’s the look Chanyeol always wears when he’s thinking.

“No. Nothing happened. Just curious.”

He hears an _ah, I see_ from Chanyeol before he turns around, and Baekhyun falls asleep that night feeling a little cold.

***

In his whole nineteen years of living, Baekhyun doesn’t think he’s ever been as weirded out has he is now.

The man from the stoplight is standing behind Baekhyun. In the mirror, he looks just as shocked as Baekhyun feels when he looks at him.

“A trim is all you need? And some styling, maybe?” The man says after a few moments of silence.

Baekhyun can only nod. He looks at the man’s shirt in the mirror and his name tag reads _Yixing._ He vaguely recalls his nights of cramming Korean history classes in middle school to recognize that the name is Chinese. 

“You’re not Korean, are you?” Baekhyun enquires, and Yixing pauses in grabbing his scissors to look at Baekhyun.

“No. But I came to Korea to help an old friend with his salon.” He speaks flawlessly, pronouncing the difficult words off his tongue as if it were second nature.

Baekhyun hums, and says, “Your Korean is very good.”

Yixing fixes him with a curious gaze, his eyes twinkling, and he thanks Baekhyun before he sets to work.

The gentle snipping of the scissors as Yixing works makes the thudding in Baekhyun’s chest relax. He closes his eyes and lets Yixing do his job, well-practiced hands moving around his head and playing with his hair. When he opens his eyes it’s because Yixing is dusting off stray hairs from his cheeks, and his touch scorches Baekhyun’s skin and lights his insides on fire.

The two meet eyes in the mirror again and Baekhyun blushes.

After the cut and style is over, Baekhyun marvels at how soft and bouncy his hair looks and tells Yixing he did a fantastic job. Yixing laughs and looks embarrassed, and his dimple shows again and catches Baekhyun’s eye. 

Baekhyun chalks off the thrumming in his chest to the heat in the room because wow, was this salon always this hot?

As Baekhyun leaves to pay his bill, Yixing pokes him in the arm and stops him. When Baekhyun turns around, Yixing seems shy and doesn’t look him in the eye. He asks Baekhyun if he has time later this afternoon after his shift, and says that he knows a good Chinese restaurant down the road.

Baekhyun waits for the voice in his head to tell him it’s _dangerous,_ but when he’s met with only silence, he says yes to Yixing and gives him his number.

***

Somewhere between their dates at the Chinese restaurant and his appointments at the salon, Baekhyun falls in love again.

It’s the way Yixing calls him handsome. It’s the way Yixing acts like a gentleman but doesn’t make Baekhyun feel any inferior to him, or make him feel like the girl in their relationship. 

Yixing is gentle, kind, and caring. Yixing’s eyes sparkle when he smiles the same way Baekhyun’s mother did when his father was still around. Yixing’s hands are larger than his, but they’re soft and tender whenever he touches Baekhyun, and not calloused and hard. 

On their fourth date (he feels so guilty whenever he calls it a date), it’s Baekhyun’s birthday and Yixing takes him out to see a movie. Baekhyun enjoys it because it’s from his favourite movie studio, but this time, he can’t focus very well on what’s happening in front of him. Yixing is too close to him. Their shoulders are touching and their hands graze each time they reach for popcorn.

During a particularly sad scene in the movie where the main character’s mother is betrayed by her lover, Baekhyun bursts into tears and gets a few odd stares from around them. Yixing tries to calm him down, says it’s just a movie, but the movie just hits so close to home. He can’t help but be sad. He thinks that his mood’s been ruined, that he’ll be sad for the rest of the night.

Yixing panics and tells Baekhyun to look at him, and he does. Then he tells Baekhyun to close his eyes, and he does that too.

Baekhyun feels the press of Yixing’s soft lips against his, and he swears that he’s seeing fireworks until he opens his eyes and Yixing is looking back at him. It’s his first _real_ kiss, Baekhyun thinks. No matter how many times he’s kissed Chanyeol, giving him his first, his second, his hundredth kiss, he’s never felt so complete with the press of another person’s lips to his. He’s beginning to understand his father. He’s beginning to understand why he left when he did. 

Again, Yixing smiles, both teeth and dimple showing. 

“God, I feel like crying. Don’t ever cry again, Baekhyun, if it’s out of sadness. It makes me so sad to see you cry.”

Baekhyun is taken aback. He doesn’t think he’s seen Chanyeol cry since fourth grade.

He’s ecstatic after that, and smiles until the end of the film.

After the movie, Yixing pulls Baekhyun to a park bench and tells him he has something important to say. Baekhyun feels anxiety pool in his stomach when Yixing starts unbuckling the silver watch he always wears around his wrist. It’s a slow and heart-wrenching process, and Baekhyun is about to scream at Yixing to hurry up and show him before the watch slides off.

When he reveals Baekhyun’s name on the inside of his wrist, Baekhyun almost faints in Yixing’s arms right then and there.

A few tears trickle down his cheeks, and then some more, and then Baekhyun is sobbing and begging Yixing that the Chinese on his wrist reads his name. Yixing assures him that it is, and that he knew it _had_ to be his name ever since he met eyes with Baekhyun at the stoplight. Later that night, Baekhyun google translates his tattoo and much to his delight, the name on the inside of his wrist does, in fact, read _Yixing._

Chanyeol doesn’t ask why he’s crying the entire night, but pulls Baekhyun into a hug. He doesn’t question why he spent his birthday with his ‘friends’ instead of him. The silence only serves to tear Baekhyun’s heart in two and makes him cry harder.

Baekhyun knows that he should tell Chanyeol. Tell him that he’s met his soulmate, that he doesn’t think destiny is a load of horse crap anymore. Tell him that it’s time for him to move on, and thank him for everything he’s done so far. They can still be friends, Baekhyun thinks. They don’t have to become strangers. He doesn’t want them to become strangers.

But when Baekhyun comes home late one night from another of his dates at the Chinese restaurant, he sees Chanyeol sitting at their dinner table alone. One side of his face is squished into the table and he’s sleeping soundly in their empty house.

The image of his mother alone at their dinner table comes to mind and he doesn’t say anything when Chanyeol wakes up. The flicker of an old flame reignites in him, and he knows it’s the glowing embers from his first love, still there. Still breathing.

Baekhyun just watches him, and says nothing when Chanyeol undresses him.

***

He remembers his day as starting out great and ending terribly.

First, Baekhyun wakes up and brushes his teeth. He styles his hair like Yixing taught him to, and goes to class after he kisses Chanyeol goodbye. Chanyeol has been unresponsive to him these days, and Baekhyun knows it’s because he’s coming home later and later. Hanging out with some friends, he says. Chanyeol tells him that it better not be Minseok and Jongdae or he’ll throw a fit. Baekhyun reassures him that it isn’t.

And it isn’t.

After his class, Yixing picks him up in his car and drives them to the Seoul location of _Kim’s Ice Cream Shoppe._ The guy at the counter isn’t Kyungsoo or Jongin, but a close friend of theirs from the same line of work, and he always gives Baekhyun free ice cream whenever he visits with Chanyeol. This time he isn’t with Chanyeol, and Sehun gives Baekhyun a strange look but shrugs and gives him ice cream anyway. He seems confused when Yixing pulls Baekhyun in for a peck on the cheek.

Baekhyun tells Sehun to _shh._ Sehun gets the message and is now extremely interested in cleaning out a dirty ice cream tub in the back.

“Baekhyun,” Yixing says when they sit down beside a window, “this ice cream shop is wonderful. Thank you for suggesting the place. The _patbingsu_ tastes very authentic.”

Baekhyun smiles because he knew Yixing would like the place, would be able to enjoy it. After all, anything from Kyungsoo and Jongin is to be treasured and appreciated. 

He momentarily remembers what Chanyeol said about the Seoul location of the shop and how much he disliked it. The one in their hometown was much better, slightly bigger. This one was too crowded and the ice cream tasted different.

He shrugs it off because he really doesn’t want to think about Chanyeol when he’s together with Yixing.

Baekhyun and Yixing talk about their day. Yixing talks about his work at the salon while Baekhyun talks about school, and they play footsies underneath the table as they enjoy their ice cream. They look outside into the bustling city and Yixing tells him he likes how busy Seoul is, and that it reminds him of China. When he slides his foot up Baekhyun’s calf, Baekhyun’s heart beats at a worryingly fast pace but he doesn’t mind and welcomes the feeling instead.

A drop of strawberry ice cream is left on Baekhyun’s face when he finishes his cone, and he looks at Yixing in surprise when the stylist brings a soft hand to Baekhyun’s face and wipes it off. 

His hand lingers for a moment, and he tells Baekhyun his skin is so soft, and a finger brushes past Baekhyun’s eyelashes, and then he leans in–

A shadow appears beside their table. Baekhyun looks out the window.

Chanyeol stares back at him with a blank expression.

Baekhyun’s stomach drops to the floor as he pushes Yixing away from him, and he watches in horror as Chanyeol slowly makes his way into the shop. His face is still emotionless. From the counter, Sehun gasps and runs into the employee’s washroom.

“Hello,” Chanyeol says when he reaches their table. Baekhyun stands up and Yixing looks a little confused like he always does, but he stands up later too.

“Hey. I thought you had class today,” Baekhyun says.

“I did have class. It ended early.”

“I didn’t know you would be in the area.”

“I didn’t know you would, either.”

There’s an awkward silence, and Yixing clears his throat before fixing a warm smile on Chanyeol.

“Hello, Baekhyun’s friend. Baekhyun, would you mind introducing us to each other?” 

Chanyeol’s mouth twitches at the word _friend._ Yixing slides an arm around Baekhyun and his mouth twitches again.

“Ah, yes,” Baekhyun manages to say. “This is Chanyeol. I live with him. Chanyeol, this is Yixing. He’s, well, he’s my…”

Yixing is about to open his mouth and say _soulmate,_ but Baekhyun pinches the hand that’s on his waist and Yixing lets go in surprise. Chanyeol doesn’t miss the way Yixing’s watch slides down his wrist, and his eyes glint for a fraction of a second.

“He’s my hair stylist,” Baekhyun finally says, and Yixing whips his head to look at him, hurt clearly shown on his face.

“Ah, I see,” Chanyeol responds. None of them say anything after that until Yixing excuses himself and says he’s late for an appointment. A surprise shift, he tells Baekhyun. Sehun ducks his head out of the employee bathroom.

For a moment, Chanyeol isn’t facing Baekhyun and is watching Yixing as his car drives away in the bustling streets of Seoul. Baekhyun can’t tell what he’s feeling, can’t even see his face, but he’s sure of one thing, and one thing only. 

He fucked up.

“Chanyeol,” Baekhyun begins, taking a tentative step towards the other man. “Chanyeol, please, it’s not what it–”

Chanyeol turns his head so fast he almost hits Baekhyun, and his look is absolutely smoldering. His eyes are ablaze with anger and Baekhyun cringes under the intensity of his gaze.

“Then what was it?” Chanyeol challenges him. He stalks out of the shop and tells Baekhyun not to follow him when the smaller boy moves to grab his things. Before he slams the door, Chanyeol looks at Baekhyun again, this time with a blank face, and speaks very slowly.

“I saw.”

There’s a loud clattering from Baekhyun’s right, and he looks over to see that Sehun’s dropped a stack of cups.

***

The next few days are tough for Baekhyun.

Yixing won’t answer his calls, saying that he needs ‘time to think.’ Chanyeol refuses to talk to him or even look at him. He leaves their bed early in the morning and comes home late at night when Baekhyun is already asleep. Baekhyun feels like he’s living all alone, feels like he can understand what his mother felt when his father left. At night, he’s cold, and even when he scooches right up to Chanyeol’s back and whimpers, Chanyeol won’t turn around and envelop him in his warmth like he used to.

One day, Chanyeol comes home early and walks over to Baekhyun who’s sitting on their couch. Baekhyun is confused, seeing as he’s been treated like a ghost for the past week, and he tilts his head in bewilderment when Chanyeol sits down beside him.

“It’s okay,” Chanyeol says softly. “I’m okay now. I’m not angry anymore.”

Baekhyun abruptly feels his heart swell at the words _it’s okay,_ and he turns to Chanyeol in hopefulness. When Chanyeol nods, Baekhyun smiles and jumps into his lap, clinging to him like a child. He’s telling Chanyeol that he had been so lonely, that he had missed him and had been so scared.

He had been deprived, Baekhyun realizes, of any human interaction over the past week. He was lonely– the loneliness was akin to how a pet dog would feel when their owner left them alone for a few days. For a second, a shred of doubt clouds his vision as he hugs Chanyeol, but he dismisses it quickly.

At this rate, Baekhyun isn’t so sure if he missed Chanyeol or Yixing more, but he’s grateful for any human touch he can get. Chanyeol’s kisses raining down on his face feel like heaven, and he’s melting in the taller man’s arms and his every word before he knows it.

Chanyeol carries him over to their bed and while he’s pushing Baekhyun down and kissing him, he asks Baekhyun not to meet with Yixing for the next few days. He asks Baekhyun to give _him_ a chance, tells him that he was in the wrong for ignoring him. He asks Baekhyun what he did wrong and how he can improve himself, and he tells Baekhyun everything he’s wanted to hear from Chanyeol for a long time. Baekhyun drinks in his words like a deprived alcoholic and agrees not to contact Yixing for a few days. He tells Chanyeol that he’s sorry and that Yixing was just something to take his mind off of school.

When Chanyeol smiles so wide one of his eyes crinkle and his dimple shows, alarms go off in his head and the voice tells him he’s in too deep now.

The pair stays in bed all day kissing each other, and they kiss so much that Baekhyun thinks his lips are going to fall off. Baekhyun ends up late to one of his classes, lips red and puffy, but he doesn’t mind the strange looks he gets from others.

He’s so lucky to have Chanyeol, after all. Chanyeol is the one person who will never leave him when he’s done something wrong. 

Chanyeol is the only person who _gets_ him.

***

“Baek, do you have class tomorrow?”

The question comes as a surprise to Baekhyun, but he replies anyway.

“No, I don’t. Why are you asking?”

Chanyeol turns to him with a wink and says he was _just curious_ , and then asks Baekhyun if he could borrow his phone for a minute. He had broken his phone by accident after the incident at the ice cream shop, and Baekhyun’s been happy to lend him his own.

“I’m going to be out for a few hours. I might be late for dinner,” Chanyeol tells him as he swipes through Baekhyun’s phone. Baekhyun nods and asks Chanyeol if he wants him to save him some dinner, and Chanyeol turns to him and kisses him on the nose.

“Yes, that would be wonderful.”

When Chanyeol leaves, Baekhyun racks his head for anything special happening the next day. He knows Chanyeol doesn’t have any classes on Fridays, and wonders what he’s leaving for. A surprise? No. Chanyeol doesn’t do surprises. Maybe it wasn’t for him. But then, why would he ask Baekhyun if he had school the next day?

Baekhyun spends his day watching old sitcoms on television. He scoops out some strawberry ice cream for himself before he phones Kyungsoo and Jongin and updates them about how wonderful things have been, how Chanyeol’s really turned things around. He doesn’t mention his soulmate because his heart tightens when he does, and he really doesn’t like that. He tries to fill his thoughts with Chanyeol, Chanyeol, Chanyeol. Chanyeol is all he needs, all he wants. 

Chanyeol gets him, tries his hardest to understand him.

After his phone call, he makes two portions of kimchi fried rice and hops into the bath. He hums peacefully as he scrubs away at his skin, pats his beauty products into his face and washes his hair thoroughly. Everything goes well until he reaches for a bottle of hair treatment.

Yixing. Yixing comes flooding into his mind and for a moment it gets hard to breathe for Baekhyun. Why now? Why was he thinking of Yixing’s dimple on his right cheek and his gentle smile now? Yixing and his soft fingers, washing his hair for him and calming him down after a tough day at school. Yixing and his amazing Korean, even managing to correct Baekhyun’s grammar mistakes whenever he slipped up. 

Kind Yixing. Gentle Yixing. 

His soulmate.

Baekhyun feels a sudden burning in his wrist and he looks down to see that his wrist is on _fire._ He yelps and dunks it into the water, but it doesn’t help put out the flame or even ease the burn. He howls in pain and distress when it doesn’t go away. He’s never felt anything this intense– anything this _forceful_ – and he trembles violently when the Chinese characters on his wrist start fading.

He gives a bloodcurdling scream, and shrieks for it to stop, but it doesn’t. The stabbing sensation in his wrist continues as each stroke of Yixing’s name slowly fades until it’s nothing. Baekhyun is left staring wide-eyed at the skin on his wrist, smooth of any markings or colour.

He tries to get up. Really, he does. But, it takes a number of tries before he can stand on his wobbly legs. Baekhyun feels like he’s back in the eleventh grade again attending one of his physical therapy sessions. Except this time, there’s nobody to help him– not even Chanyeol.

With a loud splash, he steps onto the cold bathroom tiles in front of him and wraps himself in a towel. He considers calling the police or the hospital or just _anyone,_ but the tingling in his wrist and the rest of his body is slowly fading. He can breathe again.

A loud knocking is heard from the front door, and Baekhyun almost slips on his way to open it. The voice in his head is warning him, _commanding_ him not to open the door with such a strong intensity that he pauses for a second before the lock. 

He looks into the peephole and sighs.

It’s just Chanyeol.

Baekhyun opens the door and Chanyeol walks in, slipping off his shoes and into their apartment. He sighs in relief, and doesn’t know what he was so worked up for. For Chanyeol, things are as usual– he takes off his coat, hangs it on his own red coat-hanger and heads to their bedroom to change his clothes.

The hallway to their bedroom suddenly feels so long, but Baekhyun just follows after Chanyeol and tries not to mind his beating heart. The voice in his head has suddenly quieted down, and as if by coincidence, he notices for the first time that night how quiet Chanyeol had been so far.

How blank his expression was when he came in.

He’s scared now. Chanyeol isn’t saying anything to him, only watching him and standing in the entrance to their bedroom.

“Come on, Baek. What are you waiting for?”

There’s something in Chanyeol’s voice that’s… _off._ He can’t put his finger on it, but something is not the way it should be. 

What was Chanyeol doing for the past five hours?

Baekhyun looks behind him and sees the front door is still unlocked. Hair wet and still clutching his towel, he looks back at Chanyeol who still has no expression on his face. 

He runs.

Baekhyun is sprinting for his life to the front door, not caring that he’s still half-naked and barefoot. All he knows is that he has to get to that door _or else._ He agrees with the voice in his head that it’s dangerous.

He hears heavy footsteps thunder behind him, but he’s faster than Chanyeol. He’s a runner, after all. All those years of running under the guidance of his mother have made running like breathing to him. Even with his injury, he can still probably run faster than anyone he knows.

A sharp pain courses through Baekhyun’s leg and he curses, stumbling just before the door.

Chanyeol reaches him in a second and Baekhyun turns to see the same blank expression in front of him. He notices how muscular Chanyeol’s arms are and how much he liked to touch them, feel them when they were in bed together at night.

Now, Chanyeol’s arms just look intimidating. The wind is knocked out of him as he feels a punch to his gut. Baekhyun doubles over, and his towel falls to the floor. 

Chanyeol doesn’t give him a chance to rest. Baekhyun is coughing, hair dripping water everywhere, but he stops moving when he feels a large hand close around his throat. Chanyeol’s large, calloused hand can easily wrap around his thin neck. 

He feels his back sliding up the wall, feet leaving the floor. He struggles and kicks at Chanyeol, but his grip is strong. Chanyeol doesn’t budge an inch even when Baekhyun claws at the thick arm choking him.

Looking at Chanyeol now, Baekhyun catches a crazed look in his eyes and looks down to see Chanyeol is hard. He’s enjoying this, Baekhyun thinks. The thrill excites him. 

Baekhyun blacks out when Chanyeol squeezes harder, drool falling down his chin and arms giving up the fight. 

“It’s a good thing you don’t have class tomorrow,” Chanyeol says before he falls unconscious.

***

Baekhyun wakes up strapped to a table.

Actually, it’s not his whole body that’s strapped to a table. He’s sitting in a chair and it’s his left arm that’s tied down, palm facing up. The rest of his body is still restrained, however, with leather fastenings. He vaguely realizes that he’s still naked, save a towel draped over his hips, but at least his hair is dry.

His head is splitting in half. The skin on Baekhyun’s neck feels tender, and if his hands were free, he would touch them and would want to make sure there weren’t any markings left behind.

He isn’t too sure where he is. He doesn’t think he was knocked out long enough to be able to be taken out of their house, but the room he’s in is unfamiliar and very dark. He wonders how Chanyeol could have taken him outside if he was butt-naked like he is now.

A door opens, and Chanyeol walks in expressionless.

In his arms, Baekhyun notices that Chanyeol is holding a number of large boxes. He walks over and sets one down, and opens the other to take out a few pieces of equipment. He sets up a device that Baekhyun realizes is a _tattoo machine,_ and he hears alarms going off in his head.

“Chanyeol.”

“Yes, Baekhyun?”

“What is this?”

Chanyeol turns to look at him now, gaze tender, and he brings a hand up to cup Baekhyun’s face. Baekhyun flinches away, and Chanyeol frowns. He grabs Baekhyun by the jaw and turns his face back.

“I’m going to make us match,” Chanyeol says simply. “It might hurt a little. But it’s better than not having a tattoo at all, isn’t it?”

In his head, Baekhyun is panicking. The inside of his brain is a mess. Little workers in his brain run around screaming and throwing things everywhere. Things go haywire and his brain is on overload as Chanyeol sets up the tattoo machine before him. 

On the outside, he tries to keep a cool demeanor. He wonders if he’ll be able to reason with Chanyeol to let him go, that forcing him a tattoo isn’t worth it. It won’t make him Chanyeol’s soulmate. It won’t do anything other than hurt him.

But his brain flickers back to Yixing, and he pales.

“I’m almost done setting up. It’ll take two, maybe three hours because I’m new at this. But I’ll make you feel good, Baek. You’ll thank me after.”

Baekhyun looks wide-eyed at the needle Chanyeol has in his hand. Chanyeol catches him looking at it before he smiles at Baekhyun, dimple on his left cheek, and he caresses Baekhyun’s cheek lovingly. He turns on the machine, a low buzzing filling the room, and Baekhyun swallows nervously. Chanyeol pauses before he sets it down and looks at Baekhyun’s wrist.

The skin on his wrist is a bright red, and Chanyeol looks like he’s wondering if it’s safe to put another tattoo on the raw, chafed skin. The decision appears to be an easy one as he quickly sterilizes Baekhyun’s wrist with a wipe and draws the outline of his name in pen. 

“No, please,” Baekhyun begs. “Please don’t.”

“Relax, Baek. I’ll take care of everything. The tattoo’s going to look just fine.”

At that moment, Baekhyun wishes for nothing else than to sink into the chair and disappear. He gathers with dread that Chanyeol won’t listen to reason, that Chanyeol has _never_ listened to reason. He berates himself internally over and over again, moaning at the situation he’s gotten himself in. Why didn’t he see the signs before? Chanyeol, and his blank stare. His strange fixation with him. 

Baekhyun deadpans when he realizes that all of this had to start in the fourth grade.

Chanyeol switches on the machine after he dons a pair of rubber gloves. He picks up the buzzing needle ever so slowly, so slowly that’s killing Baekhyun inside, and he brings it to his wrist. The tip of the needle is intimidating and Baekhyun can’t move an inch with the leather that fastens his wrist to the table. 

He isn’t prepared for the pain that comes next.

The skin on his wrist is tender, and the needle stabbing into his skin a million times _hurts._ He feels a stinging in his skin. Tears are streaming down his face and he’s screaming _no, please no,_ but Chanyeol chuckles.

For the next two and a half hours, Baekhyun is subjected to an intense pain hammering at his wrist over and over again, black ink staining his pearly skin forever. He knows that tattoos aren’t supposed to hurt nearly this much, and he can’t help the cries of pain that escape him.

When the tattoo is finally finished, Baekhyun’s voice is hoarse and he’s absolutely spent. 

“I’m doing this for you– _us,_ Baekhyun. We’re in love, after all.”

Baekhyun’s eyes are half-lidded and filled with tears. Chanyeol tries to kiss them away, but Baekhyun shivers and turns away from him. He doesn’t want to be touched. 

Then, Chanyeol starts whispering again. 

Chanyeol whispers in his ear how beautiful he is, how much he means to him. He whispers that the worst of it is over now, that they can be together now without any other ‘interference.’ Things will get better, Chanyeol says. He promises Baekhyun. He gives him his word.

It feels like Chanyeol’s promises are wrapping around Baekhyun’s neck and choking him. Baekhyun wonders just how many of his words are simply sweet lies, and if the love Chanyeol has for him is true or not. Just how much of it stems from Chanyeol’s own selfishness?

But he’s looking up through his tears into Chanyeol’s handsome, handsome face, and he’s sinking into the familiar touches and the familiar rumbling of his voice. He knows that Chanyeol didn’t mean to hurt him, didn’t want to do this to him. After all, Chanyeol tells him many things, and whenever he does, Baekhyun trusts him. He’s apologizing and he’s holding him close, whispering that Baekhyun’s his _baby_ and that he would never do anything to hurt him.

Because Chanyeol’s the only one who _gets_ Baekhyun.

Because he’s his soulmate. 

***

_Baekhyun thinks that it isn’t so bad, living like this._

_Being smothered in Chanyeol’s love._

**Author's Note:**

> I do not condone abusive relationships or emotional manipulation in any shape or form. Thank you for reading.


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